KING Felipe VI has become the first Spanish monarch to appear on the cover of a gay magazine.

A special edition of the bilingual Ragap magazine features the royal in a very regal pose, with a grey suit and arms crossed.

Felipe has now cemented his reputation as a firm favourite with Spain’s LGBT community, after also becoming the country’s first monarch to meet with LGBT representatives during his first week in office in June 2014.

“King Felipe is part of a generation that has lived through the persecution of LGBT people…to the beginning of the first collective movements of activism,” reads the article.

“However, there is still much to do and Felipe VI faces a great challenge. But for the moment, he is off to a good start.

“For the first time, a head of state in Spain listened to demands of activists against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.”

Felipe VI took over from his father Juan Carlos, when the former king abdicated last summer.

MADRID (AP) — Europe’s political upheavals are knocking on Spain’s door. Two parties that hardly registered a year ago are mounting an unprecedented challenge to the governing Popular Party and the main opposition Socialist Party that have dominated Spanish politics for four decades.

A poll published Sunday in El Pais placed the radical-left Podemos (“We Can”) and the grass-roots movement Ciudadanos (“Citizens”) neck-and-neck with their established rivals ahead of next month’s local and regional elections. The four were separated by less than three percentage points.

It’s the latest in a political sea change seen across Europe — from Greece to Britain — as voters express frustration with traditional parties struggling to reverse economic hard times brought on by the continent’s financial crisis.

“The political effects of the crisis are going to be long-lasting,” said Antonio Roldan of think-tank Eurasia Group. “There is definitely a deep transformation.”

Greece’s Syriza government — a new coalition of the radical left and nationalist right — was elected in January on promises to scrap the austerity measures imposed in return for Greece’s two international bailouts, worth a total of 240 billion euros ($253 billion). Hard bargaining with Greece’s creditors has made Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ government popular, with many Greeks saying they have regained a sense of national pride.

In France’s local elections last month, voters turned their back on the governing Socialists, who recorded their fourth electoral defeat since President Francois Hollande took power in 2012. The government’s failure to revive the ailing economy and lower the 10 percent unemployment rate sent voters to the right, with the far-right National Front winning 22 percent of the vote.

Britain’s political future is hard to predict ahead of a May 7 general election. British elections have for decades delivered majority governments for either the center-right Conservatives or the left-leaning Labour Party, but polls indicate that voters are defecting in droves to alternatives, including the separatist Scottish National Party and the anti-immigration UK Independence Party. After several years of economic turbulence and government spending cuts, many people are disaffected with the way traditional parties have handled the economy, the public health system, immigration and relations with the rest of Europe.

In Spain, the European Union’s fifth-largest economy, where national elections are due by the end of the year, an unemployment rate of almost 24 percent and a series of political corruption scandals have fueled discontent and opened a door for new groups promising change.

The two newcomers are young and brash, with leaders in their mid-30s. By contrast, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is 60.

Podemos, which has links to Greece’s Syriza, is not only offering something different — it looks different. The party’s rise is greatly due to the charisma of its pony-tailed leader, Pablo Iglesias, a 36-year-old political science professor. From the working class Madrid neighborhood of Vallecas, Iglesias prefers jeans and rolled-up shirt sleeves to the usual suit and tie of political leaders.

And Iglesias doesn’t pull his punches. He says Spain is “run by the butlers of the rich” and that the economy must serve the people. That kind of talk is commonly heard on Spanish streets.

Fellow newcomer Ciudadanos, a centrist party whose name means “Citizens,” grew out of a gathering of Catalan intellectuals. It, too, has benefited from a popular and eloquent leader — 35-year-old Albert Rivera. The party offers a “third way” between the traditional parties, but pledges to be just as tough on corruption.

The El Pais poll said Podemos would garner 22.1 percent of the vote if elections were held today, with the Socialists taking 21.9 percent, the Popular Party, 20.8 percent and Ciudadanos, 19.4 percent.

“Podemos and Ciudadanos are … putting pressure on the traditional parties to rejuvenate and end the string of corruption cases,” said Juan Hidalgo, a 32-year-old salesman in Madrid. “It’s a good thing that new parties with new ideas can be decisive when it comes to forming a government.”

With the new parties potentially playing the role of kingmaker in this year’s elections, investors are watching Spain closely for signs that political turmoil — particularly from a surging Podemos — may send new financial shockwaves through the 19-nation eurozone, said Antonio Barroso, a London-based analyst with Teneo Intelligence, a political and business risk consulting firm.

“Investors just don’t want to see another Greece, to put it bluntly,” he said.

The El Pais survey, conducted by the Metroscopia polling firm, was based on telephone interviews with 1,000 people between April 7 and 9. It had a margin of error of 3.2 percent.

A new “Freedom Flotilla” is scheduled to embark for Gaza in two months’ time, organisers said on Tuesday.

The voyage is scheduled to begin in the first half of the year, which means the flotilla could set sail within weeks, Mazen Kahel, an organiser with the European Campaign to end the Siege on Gaza, told MEE.

Like its 2010 predecessor, this year’s flotilla aims to challenge Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip which has been in place since 2007.

Former Tunisian president Moncef Marzouki has given his “full support” to the mission. He is expected to take part and will be on one of the boats, several organisers have confirmed.“Marzouki has always been engaged with the cause and has openly supported the Palestinians in his time of power,” Kahel told MEE.

Negotiations are currently underway with other political, religious and business figures, but their names have yet to be confirmed and will be announced at a later date, Kahel added.

Activists from across Europe, the US and the Middle East will participate in the flotilla, organised by a string of civil society groups and NGOs working under the Freedom Flotilla Coalition.”

“I believe that up to 70% of the top firms offer commissions to agencies and it should be stopped.”

Fellow lawyer Javier Lopez from MT Lawyers in Fuengirola added: “Apart from being against our ethical professional rules, such practices spoil the reputation of Spanish lawyers.

“It generates mistrust in the Spanish economy and rewards unprofessional agents who are more concerned about their commission than in providing an independent quality service: “It is in absolutely everybody’s interest that the practice ends.”

TOMIE JONES SAYS- This racket has been practiced for years and it is not just the lawyers that are corrupt by participating in this the estate agents are just as dirty. .Estate agents need no qualifications to practice, any tom, dick, harry, charlie, brian ,morris, paddy, or andy can be an estate agent.There are guidelines, moral rules that estate agents should abide by, many do not, it is dog eats dog among the different estate agents and a no holes barred attitude when it comes to selling a property. I am not going to quote a specific example, that multiple selling prices on a property is not uncommon, where 3 or four agents are trying to sell the same property.This was a recent case when a johnny come lately walked into the business and straight away participated in this sharp practise, the only qualification he has is the gift of the gab and sell at all costs attitude He claimed ignorance, did not know it was sold.Maybe the situation has settled down now and he is taking a more professional style of his job. It was all over the media sites originally.The rest of the profession did not seem to take kindly to his entrance into the field of property selling.Maybe a few simple questions first to the executive, qualifications , business experience, and if your not comfortable with them ask for another member of staff to deal with you ,you know what they say fools rush in where angels fear to tread.The olove press newspaper is doing a great job highlighting the pitfalls and recommending the companies you can trust ,keep it up JON YOU ARE DOING A FINE JOB.